


White Blood, Red Blood

by JustSalPals



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Other, Self-Harm thoughts, post ztd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 19:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19157551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSalPals/pseuds/JustSalPals
Summary: Diana couldn’t help the way she felt anymore than Sigma could help noticing. It was in the way she’d stop herself midsentence sometimes, as if realizing suddenly she was talking to a stranger. It was hidden behind smiles that sometimes turned wrong, stiff and plastic as if she was merely reading from a script(or acting out her code). It was the hard edge to her eyes when she thought he couldn’t see, a dreadful mix of mourning and anger that even the woman herself tried to pretend didn’t exist. Sometimes she looked at him as if he was a ghost. Sometimes she looked at him like he was the executioner.Or: After the true end of ZTD, 22 year old Sigma still returns to his body on April 13th.





	White Blood, Red Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Some Youtubers I like just finished 999, which means I've been dragged kicking and screaming back into Zero Escape hell. After powering through ZTD again, I felt like writing for the first time in forever. Mostly it's just me rambling about Sigma's mental state with no real plot, but I had the overwhelming need to get it out for some reason. I had a couple vague ideas for a story moving forward, but they pretty much got scrapped in favor of writing about Sigma sitting in a dark room and thinking Too Much.

Sigma was pretty sure that Diana hated him.

Well maybe hated was a bit too strong of a word. Resented. Blamed him for taking away someone important to her, someone she could never get back because of him. He knew that she didn’t want to think that way, always yearned to see the best in people. She was rather like Luna in that regard _(which was on purpose, a quiet part of his brain supposed)_.

Even so, Diana couldn’t help the way she felt anymore than Sigma could help noticing. It was in the way she’d stop herself midsentence sometimes, as if realizing suddenly she was talking to a stranger. It was hidden behind smiles that sometimes turned wrong, stiff and plastic as if she was merely reading from a script _(or acting out her code)_. It was the hard edge to her eyes when she thought he couldn’t see, a dreadful mix of mourning and anger that even the woman herself tried to pretend didn’t exist.

Sometimes she looked at him as if he was a ghost. Sometimes she looked at him like he was the executioner. It wasn’t as if he blamed her, that was a perfectly natural response. From her perspective he was some stranger that swooped in out of nowhere, banishing the man she loved far away and prancing around in his body like some sort of morbid puppet show.

Never mind that it was his body to begin with, and that the man she’d known had been the real interloper. Never mind that Sigma was the one having his consciousness yanked carelessly from one extreme to the next, some limp toy to be batted around by fate and god and even by himself. Fuck himself. Fuck sixty-seven-year-old Sigma. Fuck the AB project. Fuck Diana and those sad eyes she was terrible at hiding from him.

He wished that she’d just be angry at him instead. That all that resentment would keep twisting and pulling taunt until it finally snapped. Until she said something that she’d regret, so Sigma could convince himself he wasn’t the bad guy here. It was a selfish thought, but he was a selfish guy. Not like the image she’d built up of him, kind and chivalrous whenever it most counted. Sigma was a selfish coward. It was only natural that after returning to his own time that fateful day in April, he lasted about a week before shutting her out.

It would be best for them both, Sigma rationalized as he sent off another halfhearted excuse to get out of meeting up. She didn’t need him hanging around, both a ghostly reminder of the man she loved and the one who killed him wrapped up in one package. He didn’t need her in the corner of his vision, a flash of red hair calling the wrong name to his throat. Timid kindness that hid the true extent of her determination, a soft smile with far too much sadness lurking behind, _surprisingly firm arms around his waist as ABT fell off her metal frame in large disturbing chunks._

Sigma searched for a GAULEM in her eyes, and Diana searched for a tired old man in his. Maybe something real could have grown between them, like it would’ve in the other history he knew existed out there. Two lonely souls pushed together by circumstance and apocalypse, three years spent together and learning her soul like it was his own. A pair of hermits discovering together how to look properly at the person in front of them, instead of at a ghost that was never coming back.

Logically, he knew that timeline had to exist. It was the reason Luna resembled her so much in the first place, or so he’d pieced together from bits of context and alternate memories. Old man Sigma, so distraught over losing the woman he loved, scrapped together a robot based off her to fill the hole in his heart. So why was Diana the one who felt like a cheap imitation? It wasn’t fair. Not to her, and not to him. Not to Phi.

Jesus, Phi. Wonderful Phi, his one unchanging rock in a world where everything was wrong. Of the eight people he’d shared that awful and unbelievable experience with, she was the one there with him now. Sometimes everything felt like some god-awful dream, a bundle of nonsense his fucked up mind conjured up to explain why he was such a mess. All it took was a look from Phi, that brief connection, a shared twitch of a grimace to assure each other, “Yeah, it was real. We’re real.”

Maybe that's why Diana felt like such a stranger, even though he sometimes physically ached with the need to protect her. They both expected there to be that recognition, that unbreakable connection that only ever forged after going through hell together. It wouldn’t matter how long they tried to shove themselves together, like pieces from two entirely different jigsaw puzzles. He could never truly understand what happened during the DCOM experiment, and she’d never understand everything that happened at Rhizome 9.

Sigma stared at the phone in his hands for several moments, itching to reach out to someone. Anyone. Anything to drag him from his constantly churning mind, thoughts racing around in muddled tandem until they collapsed inward on what little sense of identity was left. The walls of his shitty apartment were suffocating, but he couldn’t find the energy to go out hunting for a new one. Why bother when Crash Keys had offered to keep paying his rent indefinitely?

His thumb hovered over one contact. The only person he’d even think of sharing this moment with, vulnerable and more than a little drunk. As if there could ever be anyone else. All his superficial relationships from school had fallen apart after four months of radio silence, and Sigma couldn’t be bothered to reach out a hand when he never really cared about them as people in the first place. Just formless shapes to fill the silence, an old strategy of surrounding himself with people to pretend like he hadn’t isolated himself entirely. These days he’d given up the pretense.

Maybe he should apologize to her again, for all those times he’d hit on her back on the moon. Even if it had purely been jokingly, falling back on crude humor and carefree attitude to cover an inability to truly converse and connect with strangers. He still felt like a fucking sleaze for it, now that Phi meant so much to him. Now that she was family in both spirit and by literal blood relation. That sure had been a shock to find out, as she laid out everything that had happened in the bunker with a mix of careful tiptoeing and deadpan humor. She was always good at that.

On second thought, she’d just get pissed if he apologized again. Phi was always looking forward, and she’d drag him kicking and screaming to the future with her if it was the last thing she did.

 

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[I think I hate myself.]

 

Huh, maybe that was a bit stronger than he meant for it to come out. Whatever.

 

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Join the club, buster.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Is it a self-hating club, or just a Sigma hating club? I need those sweet details before I make a commitment.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Either or. I hear they’re both popular options these days.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Any reason you decided to text me with your bs in the middle of the night?]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Insomnia is a bitch, so I thought some booze might take off the edge. Been staring at the wikipedia page for termites for the last couple hours.]

 

Did he ever tell her about the termites? They lingered over his head like a bad omen, a single snapshot of the man he could become reflected back at him through a hologram. Stupid fucking Zero, rambling nonsense about insects like he was just some old man who was too smart for his own good and ended up getting lost in his own metaphor. As if he hadn’t proved he was willing to kill for his goals, whether they understood how it was for the greater good or were just dragged along for the ride.

Stupid fucking termites, with their fantastic architecture and ability to act as a perfect example for how humankind might be acting on a fourth dimensional scale. Stupid Sigma, unable to stop his natural curiosity from leading him further down the exact same rabbit hole his elder self dropped into. Stupid. 

 

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[You’re surprisingly cohesive for someone drunk enough to text me “I hate myself” at one in the morning.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Typos are for the weak.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Can’t fool me, you’re taking a lot longer than usual to respond than usual. Taking extra time to be sure you don’t mess up, are you?]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Shut up, it’s too early to be dragged like this.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[You’re the one who decided to crawl to me with this self-deprecating pity party. If you wanted someone to coddle you, we both know I’m the worst option.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[I guess. I don’t know what I’m doing any more.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Not that I knew before, but I guess now I’ve got more context. I can see the full scope of there being no fucking point.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[The point is that there is no point, dumbass. We worked so hard to make sure there wouldn’t have to be a point.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[You worked so hard. The 67-year-old Sigma worked so hard. I just got thrown around timelines until I was shoved right back where I came from.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Stubborn bastard. That was still you.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[It could’ve been me. Now it’s not.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[I don’t want to be that dick anyway. Screw whatever happened in the decision game, he was willing to kill all of us. He DID kill all of us.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[In different histories. No one died in the final timeline we jumped from.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[We can’t just act like the other timelines we went to didn’t exist. Hell, you were born in another timeline! Are you saying that you don’t count?]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[I don’t know.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[It’s late. I’m tired. I’m not going to be your self-hate sounding board while you pretend this is about the other Sigma. You’re freaked out that you could become him, boohoo.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[What a horrible fucking fate. To become a genius scientist willing to put his life on the line to save billions. To be willing to burn that same world down for the sake of protecting family. What an awful bastard, saving everyone even though he knew from the beginning he’d never be able to stay here.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[That seems like a really idealized version of the guy.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[I guess, but he was trying his best. Maybe you should try it sometime.]

 

Sigma’s phone felt heavy in his hand, glaring at the words as if Phi herself could see his expression. He really should have expected that kind of reaction, but it easy to forget sometimes how close she must have been with him. How was it that he had worded it before? That unbreakable connection that only ever forged after going through hell together. Of course she’d side with the other Sigma, even beyond the fact that he was her father. When you go through that kind of morbid game together, all a person’s horrible faults seem so much smaller in perspective.

He would know, it was probably the only reason Phi still talked to him.

Time passed. He didn’t know how long. He’d never bothered to buy a clock for his cramped apartment, he was very pointedly not checking his phone after that conversation with Phi, and he’d come back to this time to find out someone (*cough*old man Sigma*cough*) had thrown away his only watch. That was one thing the other Sigma had done that he couldn’t bring himself to be mad about. He probably would’ve done so himself after getting back, the memory of a cold metal bracelet causing his wrist to itch. Just thinking about it made him want to scratch at the pale flesh, just to rip and tear as if the bracelet was embedded under his skin. As if the only way to be rid of it for good was to peel back the flesh until his fingers hit that cold and familiar display screen.

Sometimes he thought about taking a scalpel to his palm, just to make sure that this was real. The other day he’d chewed on his nails so much, the flesh around his thumb started to bleed. Sigma just sat there for a long time, watching the red liquid slowly bead against his skin until enough gathered to drip down his hand. Red. Red. Of course it was red, of course his arms were real, of course, of course. It had taken him far too long to move from his seat, to halfheartedly rinse it off and dig a cat themed bandage out of his bathroom cabinet.

His phone buzzed. Why? Who would be texting at this hour, to Sigma of all people?

Phi. Obviously it would be Phi. God, he didn’t deserve her.

 

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Did you ever go see Clover? I hear Crash Keys released her and Alice about a week after the DCOM incident.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[No, why would I? She’s not the Clover we knew back at Rhizome 9.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Dunno. Thought maybe you’d want to check up on her anyway.]

 

If Sigma closed his eyes, he thought that maybe he could see her. Thick pink hair that seemed impossible to tame, so expressive and loud while still trying to keep her cards close to the chest. So quick to trust, so quick to not trust anyone. He thought of her body hunched over in the infirmary, her wrist dangling at an odd angle from the handcuffs and a bloody message drying on her thighs.

 

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Do you have her number?]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Akane might. Maybe Junpei.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Junpei?]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Tenmyouji. They were in another nonary game together last year.]

To: Σ  
From: Phido  
[Don’t worry, I’ll ask them for you. God forbid you go out of your way to talk to someone.]

To: Phido  
From: Σ  
[Thanks.]

 

He should’ve rose to the occasion, taken her barb in stride and shot back one of his own. This is what they did, teasing each other with empty words and petty jabs. Rely on humor so that they could ignore the tension blanketed overhead.

Not tonight. Sigma was tired, drunk, and thinking about what color he was on the inside. Schrödinger’s blood.

For once he wished he could go back to thinking about termites.

**Author's Note:**

> Admittedly, the bit at the end of going to see Clover is from an idea rolling around in my head of Sigma offering to make Light a cool robot arm and having good mutually traumatized bonding time. Don't know if it'd be Sigma/Light or Sigma/Junpei or whatever, but thought I'd leave the thread dangling if I ever wanted to come back to this.


End file.
